You'd probably love "The Corner" Heather. It's about one family that lives by a drug corner in West Baltimore, and why they make the choices they make and who gets into and out of the drug life(I was completely stunned by who got clean and who didn't...at the beginning it looks very different.) And also it talks about where the drug war went wrong, and how really poor people have different expectations. And a lot of the vivid details I loved about "A Year on The Killing Streets" like what people really do in crack houses. And what a burn bag is(That's when you sell baking soda or something as drugs.VERY hazardous to your health.) My proof that Simon and Burns know whereof they speak: Graffiti in W. Balmer Social Services elevator: "All of y'all that work here can just go fuck yourselves." Trust me...that person is a poet and he doesn't know it.

Is it non fiction or fictionalized?

Non-fiction...some of the dialogue got reconstructed.David Simon used to be a Baltimore Sun crime reporter, and Edward Burns is ex-cop turned schoolteacher(there's a guy loves doing stuff the hard way.) They hung around and followed people, basically.

OK, I'm in the "gloaty-gloat-gloat" privileged corner.

I just got the e-MS of Roz Kaveney's new non-fiction, Waking into Dream: Readings in Science Fiction Film.

(jealous of deb)

Random question: I need a make and model of a car I might rent if I go to London. What's a stereotypical British rental car?

I just finished reading Cornelia Funke's new book Inkheart and enjoyed it emensely - even more than her other book The Thief Lord. A few pages into the book I got that feeling that you get when you read a familiar, well loved book, so I know that I will be rereading this on often (so I may have to buy it!) Some reviewers felt it was too long but I can't imagine what could have been cut.

I just finished The Golden Compass, and I'm pissed I hadn't read this before. I'm still a little puzzled by some of the technicalities of the world he's built, but I love his cranky short-sighted big-hearted heroine, the instability of the world around her, and he had me really tense for the last couple chapters.

I just put Inkheart on my reserve list at the library yesterday

I was talking to my sister on Sunday and she asked me if I had read Inkheart yet. When I said I was half way through it she said "Me too!". My sister isn't a big YA, Fantasy fan but she's enjoying this one because of all the book references.

I love Inkheart. I read it a few months ago ( I guess before Christmas) and was enchanted by the references. I've been playing with how I can use pieces of it to teach allusion.

I just finished The Golden Compass, and I'm pissed I hadn't read this before. I'm still a little puzzled by some of the technicalities of the world he's built, but I love his cranky short-sighted big-hearted heroine, the instability of the world around her, and he had me really tense for the last couple chapters.

I love the next one in the trilogy, The Subtle Knife more, if that's possible.